Imagery in Their Eyes Were Watching God

Metaphors and other such literary devices have been used for centuries by authors to create multiple meanings and hidden significance. Sometimes, an author will work with one image throughout a novel, and other times multiple images will be used to illustrate the many messages of a story. Still, few authors have achieved the kind of metaphorical beauty Zora Hurston realizes with in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston's most famous metaphor is the …showed first 75 words of 504 total…

…showed last 75 words of 504 total…so rich and black that a half mile of it would have fertilized a Kansas wheat field." These literary treats make Hurston's world seem all the more real. Reading this book is like watching a movie in the mind's eye, with every detail so richly developed nothing is left out of the picture. Few books can offer the same experience, which is part of what makes Their Eyes Were Watching God such a powerful novel.